I wokefrom the dream gently, indulging in the deep hum of my father’s voice.
The memory of his words, however, was what stuck in my thoughts like a piece of gristle between my teeth.
The pitiless indifference in Lucas Scott’s countenance as he killed his own men stole over my senses. I’d suffered such guilt over killing someone to save Tekqua’s life, but Lucas had been remorseless. Apathetic. Their lives mattered so little to him, he couldn’t even be bothered to crease his brow.
The memory made me shiver, and I curled into myself, refusing to open my eyes. He’d killed, yes, but he’d also saved me, and I wasn’t sure how to feel about it or what it meant. Still, I’d have to meet him again and again, fully aware of what he was.
Because if my father was to be believed, Lucas’s detachment proved he wasn’t just cold-blooded.
He was heartless.
6
Not Dead
In the interest of familial stability, all female children shall remain within the proprietary care of their assigned paternal guardian until a lawful transfer through marriage is made.
—OWNERSHIP OF FEMALE OFFSPRING, N.A.O.C. 42 § 8539
After Theo debriefed me regarding my near capture at the Yorktown safe house the next morning, we stewed in a prolonged silence in his office. I picked at my cuticles while he stared frozen at his clasped hands on his desk, gripping so tight his knuckles had blanched.
“Do you think he meant it?” I asked after a time. “You know,if they waste you, they lose me.”
Theo’s dark eyes lifted. “I have no reason to believe he’s lying.”
I swallowed. “Right. I guess it just doesn’t make sense.”
“Do you feel as if I’mwastingyou, Sophia?” he asked, his voice a mixture of military hardness and perverse curiosity.
You can’t waste something that’s useless, I almost replied.
“Your father wouldn’t have wanted this for you,” he said, quieter now, like the words hurt him to say.
My mind cast back to last fall when I sat in this very chair, having a very different conversation with Theo.
“It’s…your father,” Theo says, his expression anguished, his words hesitant.
Pain lances through my chest, sharp as a blade of diamond. The rest of my body goes numb.
Bang!
My chair hits the floor as I stand. “He promised he’d come back,” I say.
“I know, Sophia?—”
“HE PROMISED HE’D COME BACK!”
Theo’s eyes grow suspiciously bright.
“You’re wrong,” I say and attack his desk, swiping up that abused sheet of paper lying before him, the one he’d been looking at when he hinted my father is dead.
He doesn’t stop me, so I blink down at the words, confused why I can’t read them, why everything is blurry.
Tears fall on the paper.
I sink down, down, down. My knees hit the floor first, then my hands, and then I crumple to my side, clutching the paper I can’t read through my tears, the letter that apparently confirms my father’s death.
“It’s a mistake,” I whisper. “This isn’t real. You’re lying.”
